


Vivid Pines

by orphan_account



Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Literally No One is Straight, Mystery, Referenced past abuse, i'm not good with tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 21:58:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14839914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: After being freed from a lifetime of abuse, Natsuki is shipped off to a boarding school in the middle of nowhere. The surrounding town has a storied history full of folklore and legend, and the students revel in it, though sometimes fiction can cut too close to reality. As Natsuki settles in for her first year away from her father's wrath, she meets new people and makes friends, building a life she always desired, but soon she becomes wrapped up in strange happenings all through the town.





	Vivid Pines

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I did just start a third series. 
> 
> Here's the thing: Other than a novel I claim to be working on, I'm not writing anything now except for DDLC fics, because I'm obsessed the game for some reason. I am capping it off at three simultaneously active series, though. 
> 
> I'm quite excited for this one. The idea came to me while reading Lovecraft's stories, just to give you an idea of what to expect out of it since I suck at tags. I've got big plans for this story, so please enjoy!

On the fourth hour of travel, the bus finally pulled off the endless highway and onto a distant road. A green sign, battered and weather worn, informed that travelers were approaching the city of Ravenspeak, a name straight out of some fantasy story. Grass covered mountains topped with thick plumes of smoke rose up from the earth all around, and thick forests of pine trees surrounded the roads. The bus lonesomely continued down a poorly maintained road dotted with potholes and bumps, as though the entire area had been abandoned. Everyone onboard was silent. 

Ravenspeak was a tiny town, not even somewhere that could be considered a highway town. It was at the peak of a mountain on the distant edge of the Appalachians, a long way from anything significant; the nearest city, Knoxville, Tennessee, was nearly an hour’s drive. The only people who lived there now were the retired waiting out their remaining days in seclusion and quiet, or students that attended the boarding school at the very top of the mountain. 

Or, at least, that’s what Natsuki knew about the town from a few internet searches.

She was one of only a dozen people on that bus, all around her age. At the start of the ride, they’d been cheerfully chatting away with one another, making introductions and acting like this was the greatest road trip they’d ever taken, but seeing their destination must’ve shut them up. No one spoke a word as they observed the empty void around them. Houses made of wood and resting on tall stilts would rarely come into view, partially obscured by thick brush and trees, but there weren’t any stores or restaurants, no gas stations, not for miles. Everything important in town was collected in the center. The only real place to do shopping was a stray WalMart, its walls greyed and dirtied and the parking lot practically deserted, and a gas station sat across the street. The local neighborhood was scattered along the winding roads, out of view and on massive plots of rolling land. It seemed every house discouraged trespassing, some with the simple sign telling people not to, others threatening guard dogs or even the horror of being shot. 

Natsuki’s remaining optimism was being tested now. She still had the solace of being out of reach, isolated from her father and his abuse, but it still stung knowing her mother rejected her and sent her off to this place. At first, Natsuki had been so excited to leave town and being a new life somewhere else, somewhere people didn’t know her and she could start fresh, but she’d been sent to the most remote boarding school imaginable, somewhere people were meant to disappear, a house of exiles. There would be others, though. Others who were rejected by their family, or outcasts amongst society. She’d find friends in them, she told herself. Yet this mountain was so…  _ empty.  _ How could she find friends amongst a place so deserted? What would the other outcasts at this school be like, anyway? Most likely, they’d be like her, and she knew just how approachable she could be. She’d built up walls all her life, all to keep  _ him  _ away, and now it kept everyone else away too. 

“Is this even the right place?” someone asked in the seat beside her, across the aisle. She was wearing a nervous smile, peering around and examining everyone else’s reactions, as though ensuring she wasn’t alone in her opinion of the town. Her hair was short, colored a bright strawberry blonde, and a crimson ribbon was tied almost pointlessly in its tangles. No one replied to her question, though. No doubt everyone else was thinking the same thing. Natsuki certainly was.

As she was a teenage girl in the current year, she spent time researching the town as soon as she received the flier that gave her an address. The flier advertised a smaller, quiet school in a secluded village surrounded by extraordinary views, and google confirmed that the town as, indeed, tiny. Yet no amount of searching could’ve prepared her for just how truly tiny the town was. There weren’t even any other cars driving down the road. As they climbed the mountain further, all the houses were rotted and abandoned, empty of anything but overgrown gardens and vines wrapped around decaying walls. 

“They say that people who live up here disappear,” someone said in the seat ahead. “That’s why no one’s up this far.” She seemed to be the only one remaining somewhat calm about the situation. Long, straight hair as black as the night sky flowed down her back, almost purple in the light. A book was resting on her lap, though her black eyes were fixed on the world beyond the window, her pupils almost turning violet like her hair under the sun. 

“Huh?” the blonde haired girl squeeked. 

The black haired girl blinked, then recoiled, as though she’d been thinking aloud. “Um,” she started, closing the book and tucking it aside, “j-just some stories I’ve heard. People go missing, I guess.”

“That’s not true, is it?” The blonde girl’s sapphire blue eyes widened, genuine fear painting her features. 

“Of course not,” Natsuki piped up. There had been some ghost stories about the town online, but she had grown up in an elementary school with its own ghost stories, all of which had been complete shit. “We’re on a mountain surrounded by woods and isolated from society. I mean, of course some people will go missing, it’s probably easy to get lost out there.”

“I-I’m just sharing what I’ve heard,” the black haired girl nervously said. 

_ Well, don’t share things if they’re stupid,  _ Natsuki thought. Once in her life, she’d been the type of person to say such thoughts in plain words, never mincing or holding her speech back, but that’d been one of the reasons she never had many friends. She needed to change. She bit her tongue and turned back to the window.

The bus continued driving alone through the abandoned neighborhood. The road was steep now, and Natsuki felt the incline weigh on her as the bus slowed down a bit. With the slower speed, she was able to catch a good look at the hospital. 

‘Everett’s State Hospital,’ the sign in front of it read, its wood marked with a dozen bullet holes. The decaying walls were scorched black, and thick vines swallowed up the foundation. Remains of a concrete parking lot were overgrown with colorful blooming flowers and a field of tall grass, but a small foot trail had been cleared down the middle to the front entrance, where the doors had long been torn of their hinges and tossed aside. Graffiti painted the interior walls, tags from artists or sketches of political symbols. Empty glass bottles were littered all across the ground, alongside disused firepits or rotting benches pulled in from somewhere else, while the broken windows peered into rooms where bed frames had been tossed aside and piled into a corner. Rising up from the center was a massive pine tree with the thickest trunk of any tree in the area, with pine needles that shrouded the roof from view and branches that twisted around the exterior walls. 

“That’s not the school, is it?” someone in the bus asked, raising a fit of laughter from everyone else, except the blonde haired girl beside Natsuki’s seat. She was fixated on the building with a curious mix of fascination and horror. 

“It’s a state hospital,” the black haired girl stated the obvious. “A m-mental ward, I think.”

“Like, for crazy people?” the blonde haired girl asked.

The black haired girl nodded in confirmation, and the blonde haired girl shivered and tore her gaze away. Natsuki kept staring. She’d read a manga set in a mental asylum, once. It was written much like a horror novel, and had actually induced stupid nightmares when she finished it. The hospital was reminding her much of that manga. It sent an actual chill up her spine, like she was a child, which she may have appeared to be but most certainly was  _ not.  _

The hospital remained in view for the rest of the climb, though trees began to veil it. People stopped regarding it once the school’s campus finally came into view. First, they passed through a gate that blocked passage, letting people know the school was ahead and only student and faculty were allowed. After that, they reached the mountain’s peak, and there were the pristine white walls of the Raven’s Academy. A broad victorian style building sat in the center of the campus, polished walls and tall narrow windows peering down at the approaching bus, with a balcony sitting above the front door, from which an older man in a suit stood with his arms on the railing. A garden flowing with a palette of flowers stretched from one end of the building to the other, and the lawn was freshly mowed and cut with a wide brick path from the parking lot. On either side was another wing; the left wing was shrouded by a ring of trees and positioned at the rocky edge of the mountain, dotted with square windows and connected by a sidewalk from the main campus. Stone benches and tables were set up in front of it, arranged in a courtyard like fashion, ending at the guardrail blocking people from tumbling to their doom. The right wing was the largest building, connected by a roofed bridge from the campus, and was basically a small tower lined with massive windows peering into classrooms neatly arranged with desks and tables. There were a few other outcroppings; sheds set up on the lawns, a garage at the end of the parking lot full of cars, and a walled off area accessible by an open iron gate.

The bus came to a full stop in front of the middle building. Someone at the front of the bus garbed in a pretty red sundress pinned with a nametag stood up and faced the rest of the bus. “Let’s all stand and exit the bus in a single file line,” she said in a deep, commanding tone worthy of a teacher. 

The students did as asked. One by one, they stepped down the metal steps and out into the humid summer air. Natsuki noticed how much harder it was to breathe. She had to take fuller breaths to keep her lungs from screaming and whining, and any amount of exertion tired her out. The way everyone else was slouching seemed to mark it as a universal thing. Other adults dressed in formal suits or flowing dresses were gathered on the lawn, greeting the newly arrived students with smiles. 

“Welcome!” someone shouted in a gruff voice. The man that was on the balcony as they approached walked down the brick path, hands clasped behind him. His face was painted in wrinkles, and the few wisps of hair remaining on his head had turned white, though his white beard was still long. If he’d been fatter, Natsuki would’ve mistaken him for Santa. 

The students gathered in front of him. The teachers sat on either side, as though herding them. The suited, old man continued, “I’m sure you’re all clamoring to get out of this heat, so you’ll be taken to the gym, where we’ll be holding orientation.”

“Is he the principle?” The blonde haired girl was standing next to Natsuki 

“Dunno, seems like it,” Natsuki replied. 

The herding teachers gathered the students into a group and led them inside the victorian building. The interior was as marvelous as the outside, decorated with murals and paintings along the spotless walls. The tiled floors shined in the fluorescent lights hanging above, and Natsuki could see her reflection in the polish. The first room was wide, housing waiting areas lined with plastic chairs and a single large desk in the middle, where a bored woman watched the newly arrivals pass by. Dozens of rooms lined the halls, most with their doors shut but others peered into classrooms where teachers moved desks and prepared for the approaching semester. Potted flowers and ferns were tucked neatly into the corners of every room, bringing a hint of life to the more neglected areas. Just before the gym, a spacious library filled with towering wooden shelves packed with books of all different types greeted the students. Balconies from a second story looked down, where students dressed in dark red uniforms sat behind tables, curiously glancing down at the crowd below. 

Every student was, of course, a girl. That was another facet of the school: only female students were permitted. Natsuki had never really been a fan of the male students that had always teased her for her smaller body, so she was quite ok with that. Everyone around her, except a few of the faculty, were girls, all around the same age. Natsuki looked more like the 9th graders than she did her fellow seniors, though she hoped that would change soon now that she was eating consistent meal throughout the days. 

Natsuki’s shoes squeaked on the laminated floor of the gym. Metal bleachers lined the back, tightly packed with dozens of new faces. Many of them wore the school’s red uniform, but many others wore plain clothes, easily separating the new students from the old. Natsuki’s group was lead to the top of the bleachers, in a damp corner where the AC refreshingly blew down on them, and waited as more students poured through the large doors at the edge of the gym. Chatter filled the drab grey walls. The suited man from earlier paced back and forth on the floor, talking with some of the other faculty members below, a mic grasped in his hand and slightly lifted toward his head. In the middle of the room was a podium, alongside a setup of two sizable speakers that hissed out a subtle stream of static. 

The blonde girl was sat next to Natsuki, just as silent. “So,” Natsuki began, trying to make smalltalk, “this place is big.” She never was one for smalltalk with strangers, but but she needed to make friends  _ somehow.  _

“Yeah,” the girl said with a nod. 

The tall black hair girl from the bus was seated behind them as well. She cleared her throat. “D-did you see the library?” she stuttered with a shy smile. “It’s so big!”

“You like to read?” Blondie asked, twisting her back.

“A b-bit,” the black haired girl replied with a small nod. “Um, my name’s Yuri.”

“Oh!” Blondie smiled. “Mine’s Sayori.” She reached out and eagerly shook a startled Yuri’s hand. 

She didn’t know if it was proper, or even welcome, but Natsuki felt she should’ve introduced herself too. “Mine’s Natsuki!” she said rather confidently. 

“Natsuki?” Sayori echoed. “It’s cute.” 

“ _ Cute? _ ” She scoffed.  _ Cute  _ meant weak. Natsuki was  _ not weak.  _ One could’ve asked her father for confirmation, saw the scars from her final breakdown, but him being behind bars would’ve complicated that. “It’s not cute!” she insisted. “It’s strong, like a warrior’s name.” But her defensive words only drew a bright giggle from Sayori, flustering her even more.

“I don’t think it was meant to be offensive,” Yuri softly said. 

Natsuki was about to say something more when the large speakers below groaned to life with a shrill sound, shutting the entire gym up. Everyone turned and faced forward as the suited man, no doubt the principal, stepped up to the podium and held the mic to his mouth. His beard was long enough to touch the top of the podium. 

“Welcome,” he said, his voice bright with energy uncharacteristic of someone his age. “Or welcome back, for those that were with us last semester. My name’s Principal Markus, and I’m going to be covering your orientation today.” 

For the next hour, he droned on about details of the campus, from its humble origins as a public high school to its transformation into a private boarding school, proudly boasting of its isolation and ignoring the obvious drawbacks of how it could be a place for the rejects like Natsuki to be shipped off to. He covered classes, schedules, meals, and various other smaller details, while the entire gym quietly listened and nodded along.

As he continued, Natsuki was left to ponder. The school’s remote location put a dent in her dreams for a new life, but it didn’t completely destroy them. She also figured living amongst the student population would help her to meet new people. With everyone spending so much time on campus, it’d be hard to avoid social interaction. She hoped she’d make close friends throughout the year. She never had before, but given that this was a fresh start to a new, exciting life, she figured that was one of the changes she’d seek, the path to a new beginning. The school also had a set meal schedule, for breakfast, lunch,  _ and  _ dinner, all in the same day! She still had to pay for snacks, though.

With the volume of the speakers, it wasn’t difficult to silently chatter. Natsuki heard people murmuring with friends all around her, unnoticed by faculty, and though she tuned them out, she couldn’t ignore the person next to her when they spoke, “Y’know, it’s not really that bad here.”

Natsuki shifted her head slightly. Sayori was to her right, while this new stranger was sitting to her left, a light smile on her face. She was dressed in the school’s deep crimson jacket with the sleeves rolled up and the top few buttons undone. Flowing ginger hair not nearly as dark a shade of red as Natsuki’s flowed down her back, tied up by a long white ribbon, and her hand was holding her pointed chin and strong jawline. Deep emerald eyes stared straight ahead at the podium as she spoke in a hushed tone. “I only got here last year, but I think it’s nice.”

“You’ve been here an entire year?” Natsuki asked.

The ginger girl nodded. “It’s quiet around here. Perfect for students, really, and the town doesn’t bother us much.”

Yuri had scooted over a bit, making no effort to hide her eavesdropping. “I like the quiet,” the raven haired girl said. 

“Might take me a bit to get used to it,” Natsuki offered with a shrug. She’d grown up in a city packed with the murmur of a crowd or the beat of nightly music and bars. Silence almost felt disturbing now. 

“You’ll come to like it,” the ginger haired girl said. “There’s lots to explore, too. The school lets us off campus with a pass, and there are so many abandoned buildings around here…”

“I saw,” Natsuki said. “What’s with that? The students run them off or something?”

The ginger girl rubbed her chin a bit. “Lots of stories, but I don’t really know. People around here tend to be older, and as they passed on, their properties were probably just left behind, and it’s not like many people are clamoring to move here.” 

“Stories?” Yuri perked up.

“Like I said, just a few,” the ginger replied. She idly extended a hand toward Natsuki. “Name’s Monika.”

“I’m Natsuki.” She gave Monika’s hand a fierce shake. “Behind you is Yuri, I think?” to which Yuri nodded a confirmation. 

“Natsuki and Yuri,” Monika repeated, as if testing the names. “Well I guess I should welcome you to Ravenspeak.”

The lecture below was nearing its end. Principal Markus was wrapping up with a cliche speech about academic performance, and how the school prided itself on its diligent student body. Natsuki had always achieved decent grades. Her homelife had hardened her personality, and she never managed to find friends thanks to her always saying something wrong on complete instinct, so her time away from school had been spent either reading manga, silently playing smuggled video games, or studying. 

Once Markus had taken his leave with a hearty goodbye, another teacher had taken the podium and made announcements about dorm life. The students had all received their dorm numbers before arrival, and after orientation let out, they’d find their new homes and settle in. The thing Natsuki noticed, however, was the ‘roommate’ part of the speech. According to the teacher, every student would share her room with one other person. Natsuki had never even slept in the same room as someone else, as far as she could remember anyways, and the thought of sharing what was basically a home with someone else, another  _ female  _ student, sent a strange shiver up her spine. Quartering in the same room would no doubt lead to them becoming friends, as they’d have little choice but to interact with each other. 

With a dismissal, the speakers faded down, and the gym was filled with chatter. The students started to clear off the benches, stretching their backs and moving down the steel steps and crowding out the door back into the library. Natsuki fell in with Sayori, keeping close to her back, while aware that Yuri was behind her. The library seemed to be where most people were setting up; bags had been strewn across tables, people sat next to each other with their school fliers open as they talked of dorms and tracked down any roommates. A red faced librarian sulked behind her counter, obviously annoyed at the most sacred rule of a library being broken in such a grand fashion. 

Sayori slipped into a table in a dark corner of the expansive room. Yuri pulled out the chair beside her, and Natsuki leaned against the edge of the table. What scarce belongings students had been allowed to bring had to be carried on their backs, and Natsuki had certainly traveled light; her duffle bag was stuffed with a laptop, her phone, earbuds, and a few of her favorite books and manga. She sifted through it, confirming everything was in its place, and fished out the informative flier she’d received before being thrown onto the bus and shipped out to the middle of nowhere. It listed off her student ID, an email address, helpful tips, a map, and most importantly - her dorm room number. 

“229?” Natsuki found it on the last floor of the dorm building, according to the printed map. “Such a long walk upstairs.”

“I’ve got 129,” Sayori said. 

Yuri looked over with a curious expression. “129?” 

“Yeah,” Sayori replied, passing her flier over, to which Yuri shyly smiled and presented her own flier. “We have the same room!” Sayori squealed. 

“You do?” Natsuki craned her neck over, and sure enough, the two girls who’d just met had the same exact room number, three whole floors down from Natsuki’s loft. A pang of jealousy shot through her. She was warming up to these two, and it hurt to see that she’d be left out from their little rapport. She’d managed to hit it off well with them, though, and perhaps she’d be able to do the same with her own roommate. 

“This is so nice~!” Sayori shouted, excitement filling her voice. “I was terrified I’d get a creepy guy, or something.”

“Sayori, guys don’t attend this school,” Natsuki flatly reminded. “And if they did, why would they pair guys with girls?”

“At least I don’t have to i-introduce myself to someone new,” Yuri said, her gaze trailing off to the floor, as if imagining such a disastrous idea. 

Sayori grasped and pulled Natsuki’s flier right from her hands with a startlingly strong grip. She looked over it, then scrunched up her brow. “That really is a long way up,” she said. 

“I’m shocked there are 229 rooms for this school,” Natsuki said. Just how many students attended this place? 

“And you’ll have to walk past all of them!” Sayori cheerfully observed, as if excited by the idea of Natsuki suffering such torture. 

“That really doesn’t make me happy,” Natsuki said with a sigh. “Oh well. I think I should find my room and see who I’ll be living with for the next year.”

Sayori turned to the raven haired girl next to her. “So, we should lay some ground rules, right? Like, that’s what people do when they live together. I dunno, I’ve never done this kind of thing before…” The girl excitedly talked on about random topics while Yuri patiently absorbed it all, though her gaze would often shoot to the far exit door, as if longing to escape. Natuki laughed as she shouldered her bag and set off, leaving the two behind. 

It was easy enough to retrace her steps. Natsuki trailed through the bright hallways, passing familiar classrooms and rounding back out the front door of the wide lobby, pushing through a thinning crowd. Outside, the summer air had grown even stuffier. The sun beat down from a cloudless sky, trying to set the world on fire, and there wasn’t a bare hint of a breeze. Most of the students had taken to resting under the shade, sipping on iced water, and all of them wore the dark crimson uniform of the school. Natsuki’s fellow new students were in the dorms instead. 

Student dorms were housed in the east wing, veiled by a ring of thick pine trees and sitting at the rocky edge of the mountainside. Natsuki had stopped at the guardrail to admire the view. Expansive valleys lush with green stretched to the horizon, flanked by hazy towers of grass and rock. Below was a massive forest, the canopy blocking the view of the floor, but it was a long fall, one that would no doubt spell the end of anyone unfortunate enough to tumble over the metal railing. Why didn’t they use a larger gate? Any student could’ve easily climbed over it with a bit of effort. Natsuki chilled at the thought, and she turned and made her way into the student housing.

The interior was as lavish as a basic hotel off the highway. The hallways were tiled floors with drab grey walls, nowhere near as grand as the campus center building. Doors dotted the sides, most open as new students unpacked bags and met their new companions. Natuski made the excruciating journey up several flights of stairs, her stunted legs burning under her as she triumphantly reached the top floor. She’d never fit in much exercise, mostly thanks to her lack of constant nutrition, but she figured this would’ve been plenty of exercise for the coming year. It was a brutal shame the building lacked an elevator. 

The top floor was completely quiet. Unlike the lower floors, this one was carpeted, and the walls were painted the same dirty brown shade as the carpets. The only windows here were set up on either side of the hall, and the middle of the hall was fitted with broken fluorescent lights pinned to the ceiling, making it shadowy. Natsuki would have to use her phone’s flashlight to get around once the sun fell. The only sign of life up here was the occasional shuffling behind a door, or the murmur of people talking within rooms, but from the outside, it seemed abandoned. The walls were strangely coated in a thin layer of dust, neither window had been cleaned in a long time, and the vents were dirty and blocked with debris, bringing a humidity from the outside. Natsuki continued down the hall, monitoring the numbers to each room.

_ 226, 227, 228…  _ “Here we are,” Natsuki whispered as she found 229. It was at the very edge of the hall. Reluctantly, she put her ear to the warm wood of the door, and heard a shuffling within. Seemed her roommate was already home. She anxiously put her hand on the knob and twisted it, then pulled the door open.

“Well, this is a surprise~.” The familiar voice belonged to none other than the ginger haired girl from the gym, Monika. She cocked a hand on her hip and smiled as Natsuki entered the room. Natsuki released a breath she’d been holding since the end of orientation. She was never awkward around people, at least not intentionally, but the idea of making new introductions to a roommate had been daunting. First impressions mattered, and bumbling those with someone she’d be spending the entire year with was the stuff of nightmares. Monika, however, had already been introduced; there was no call for an exchange of names, or pointless smalltalk. 

“You live here?” Natsuki asked. The answer was obvious, considering no one would make such a climb for no reason but to visit a room of someone they barely knew. 

“Nothing gets past you,” Monika replied. “I’ve been here for a year! They gave me the room last year, and my old roommate left after the end of the first semester. I’ve kinda been living here alone for the last semester, but it’s good to have company again.” 

“Oh.” Despite the words, Natsuki knew she was intruding. This was  _ Monika’s  _ room, and Natsuki was forcing her to divide it. 

“Really, this is great!” Monika plopped down on one of the beds, the one that had its sheets thrown aside and some added pillows. “It’s so quiet up here. There are, like, six other people on this floor, and they hate talking, so it gets lonesome.” 

“Really?” The bright words were bringing Natsuki’s spirit back, at least. 

“Yeah.” Monika nodded to the other bed, set up across the room against the window. “You can have that bed, and that side of the room.”

“The entire side of the room?” It wasn’t a large room, certainly. Natsuki’s bedroom at home had been bigger, and she and her father had been stuffed into a rather tiny apartment. An oak armoire sat at the head of the room, the doors slightly hanging ajar, though it was empty, and a desk with a computer chair was set up next to Monika’s bed, equipped with a bright lamp and a laptop already set up. Nightstands were next to either bed. 

“Two people, two sides,” Monika said with a shrug. “I took the desk, too, so you can have the armoire, I guess.” 

Natsuki shut the door behind her and dropped her bag on her new bed. The sheets were soft and smelled of fresh detergent, but she’d need to find more pillows. Right beside it was the window, which gave her a great view of the valleys beyond. “Why didn’t you take this side?” Natsuki found herself asking as she stared out at the view.

“My old roommate had that side, and I had this one. When she left, I was used to this side, so I didn’t switch,” Monika replied. 

Natsuki began unpacking. Most of her things could be stuffed in the drawers of her nightstand, which were conveniently larger than normal, but what few casual clothes she’d brought had to be set in with her uniforms inside the armoire. Since she’d be wearing her uniform most of the time, she figured she didn’t need to bring many changes of clothes. Once her bag was emptied, she set it aside and sat in her bed. Her phone clock told her it was about 5:30. 

“So…” she began.

“So…” Monika echoed, looking up from a novel on her lap.

It felt like they needed to say  _ something  _ to each other. They were living together, after all, and Natsuki wanted to know just who she was going to be dealing with the entire year. “When’s dinner?” she settled on asking, both because it broke the ice again, and because she was becoming curious. 

“In an hour,” Monika replied. “There’s stuff in the vending machines, if you’re hungry.”

“Vending machines?” Natsuki hadn’t brought cash with her.

“The school’s not too strict,” Monika replied. She closed her novel and set it on her nightstand. “Honestly, as long as you’re studying and not breaking too many rules, there’s not much they expect from you.” 

“We’re allowed off campus, right?” Natsuki had heard something about passes earlier, but wanted to know exact details. There wouldn’t be much to explore in that empty void of a town below, but she would’ve liked to occasionally head down and sift through the abandoned buildings. No one would mind, after all.

“With a pass,” Monika said. “You can only get those on weekends, though.”

“Tomorrow’s a weekend.” It was Friday today, so that made tomorrow a bright Saturday. Classes would start that Monday.

“Are you so eager to leave school?” Monika laughed. 

“I only wanted to explore a bit,” Natsuki sharply replied, perhaps a bit too much venom in her voice. “It seems boring here. They didn’t even let me bring a TV! Or video games! Just my computer.”

“I know what you mean,” Monika said. “But maybe spend tomorrow exploring the rest of the campus? I’ll give you a tour, even!” 

Natsuki shrugged. “Sure.”

“Great~! I know pretty much every corner of this place, so you’ll know you’re way around in no time!” Monika proudly said, eyes as bright as the sun. For a moment, Natsuki wondered just what she’d agreed to. As Monika began rambling on about various facilities in the school like a groupie talked about a band, Natsuki’s gaze drifted out the window, to the mountains beyond. 

She had big days ahead. She’d only spend a single year at this school, but the connections she’d make would hopefully last beyond the campus’ pristine walls. Even with its isolation, she’d already met three new people, people who knew nothing of her past and wouldn’t judge her. Here, she could be treated like the adult she was, and not a child with no control over her own life. It was time to make the most of it. 


End file.
